Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy Forcibly Guest-Edits High School Newspaper Article About His Own Visit

Supreme Court Justice and First Amendment fetishist Anthony Kennedy would not let some high school newspaper to publish an article about his recent visit to Manhattan’s Dalton School until he approved the piece first. “‘The justice’s office received a draft of the proposed article on Monday and returned it to the newspaper the same day with ‘a couple of minor tweaks,’ [Supreme Court public information officer Kathleen] Arberg said. Quotations were ‘tidied up’ to better reflect the meaning the justice had intended to convey, she said. Ms. Arberg indicated that what had happened at Dalton was unusual. ‘Justice Kennedy does not have a general policy for making such requests,’ she said. ‘The request was most likely made by a member of his staff in an effort to be helpful.'” This numbers among the many, many “journalists vs. politics” feuds that are more compelling than Fox News vs. Robert Gibbs. [New York Times]

Comments

And the Daltonian complied? I bet they make a big stink though if the school principal objects to something.

Cape Clod

I bet he will now go around bragging to friends about how he gave a speach at an “inner city” school.

Chain Tattoo

Well, in the original the writer forgot to mention Justice Kennedy’s “slender hips, tight buttocks, and massive yet imminently suckable cock.” An oversight like that just has to be corrected, first amendment or no. Clearly Justice K-Dawg was just trying to maintain journalistic integrity.

JMP

His staff was just worried when they realized what the kids would think about Kennedy’s description of his position at the center of the court as “swinging both ways”.

Bowdoin

Anytime, like when one of them who turned us like pumpkins into a banana republic in December 2000 receives a Medal of Freedom, one of the Five Fixers is mentioned anywhere, I like to point out – This one was one of those stalwarts on behalf of Repugnance everywhere who halted the vote in Florida to give the disastrous dolt from Crawford the supreme office in the land.

proudgrampa

Jesus H. Christ. What lesson does that teach about a Free Press?

And the school just rolls over??

We are so freakin’ doomed…

TubeCity

I thought this nothing story didn’t belong on the front page of the Times, or anywhere. And now it’s escalated all the way to Wonkette! And I’m commenting on it! Sheesh!

Click

“would not let some high school newspaper to publish an article about…” Can we please try that again? Thanks.

Prommie

He was just makin’ sure those kids weren’t going to abuse our precious freedoms of the press that the troops are over there fightin’ and dyin’ for, also.

Jim89048

[re=455877]Bowdoin[/re]: But at least we were finally able to Death Panel Sandra Day O’Conner’s husband this morning. Take that, freedom-having justice O’Conner!

Crank Tango

[re=455882]Click[/re]: while we’re on the subject, is it acceptable to say “allows to…” as in, “this website allows to make any old comment on earth,” i.e. without an object being allowed to do it?

Jim89048

[re=455885]Jim89048[/re]: Or O’Connor. Whatev, moran.

bureaucrap

The Dalton school kids are just learning about the prerogatives of power — the power that they as future elites will enjoy. “When you grow up, Timmy, you’ll be able to censor the press, too!”

By comparison, when I was on my high school paper, I intentionally ignored a request from an official of the L.A. Unified School district to keep a comment off the record. We printed his off the record comment, and nothing happened. You’d be surprised at how few people actually read high school newspapers.

charlesdegoal

NY Times executives and their friends obviously send their kids to Dalton. Had it happened at a school in the Bronx, no one would have cared.

Click

[re=455889]Crank Tango[/re]: No.

thefrontpage

Everyone’s at fault here: Kennedy, that dolt of a Supreme Court spokesman who doled out a heaping pile of crap, the school, the school administrators, the so-called journalistic paper at the school (if they had been taught correctly, they would have refused to go along with this crap), and anyone associated with Kennedy, the Supreme Court and the school who went along with this stupid, press-killing, censoring, idiotic, backwards and completely stupid move.

Kennedy owes an apology to the school, and the school owes an apology to its students, and everyone in this case needs to take a required, remedial seminar on journalism, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and about 100 tenets associated with journalism and a free press in a free democracy.

Kennedy–you are a moron.

user-of-owls

Lighten up. No one even reads The Dalton Granma anymore.

m_supercomputer

According to an ’88 Supreme Court decision, public school-sponsored high school newspapers don’t get full First Amendment protection, so, well, this is sadly not a surprise. Kennedy, interestingly, didn’t weigh in on that decision.

[re=455899]thefrontpage[/re]: “everyone in this case needs to take a required, remedial seminar on journalism, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and about 100 tenets associated with journalism and a free press in a free democracy.”
Or they could just use some plain old common sense.

Crank Tango

[re=455903]Click[/re]: yeah, that’s what I was thinking. To make a long story short, I translated a book from the French, and every time they used the verb “permettre” I translated it as “…makes it possible to…” and the authors constantly edited it to read “allows to” or “enables to” and that drove me nuts.
In the end, it often seemed to be best translated by “is used to.”

“Quotations were ‘tidied up’ to better reflect the meaning the justice had intended to convey”

The former Bush administration is now crying in regret they didn’t think of this.

Snarkalicious

Kimjongsezwha?

Dreadful Gate

[re=455907]Crank Tango[/re]: Why not “permitted”?

shadowMark

[re=455889]Crank Tango[/re]: Man, be careful!

OLD PEOPLE COMPLAIN.

First we had Zach Efron, then Rihanna and now high school kids in New York. Don’t you see what’s going on? It’s like that scene in Clockwork Orange when Alex gets out all behavior mod friendly and the old bums meet him in the park and beat the crap out of him. It’s youth having a go at old age. Remember, just a few days ago Jim said he would DESTROY us if we didn’t stop whining.

Old people complain and old people go to the death panels.

I for one think Juli is doing a great job and the threads today have been very interesting and wonderfully introduced with imagination and wit and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have read them and commented in my own small way.

Thank you Juli. And you’re very beautiful too!

Prommie

[re=455913]Dreadful Gate[/re]: It implies authority and control.

Click

[re=455907]Crank Tango[/re]: I’m sorry, but I lost all concentration after learning you spoke French. What a beautiful language. I’m afraid my fluency is limited to what I learned from reading cereal boxes as a child growing up in Canada.
So in “allow to” is “to” a preposition or an adverb? The “to” seems rather unnecessary.

Prommie

The USSC has also held you can randomly drug test high school students because, get this, hold on, now, sit down, the “sanctity” of the game of football outweighs the individual right to privacy. You could look it up.

Click

[re=455915]Prommie[/re]: Not always. A semi-permeable membrane permits some protiens and molecules to pass freely, while barring others. There is no actual authority or control involved (the design of the structure itself is passive).

[re=455917]Prommie[/re]: I would if I cared enough about football or high schoolers.

Crank Tango

[re=455913]Dreadful Gate[/re]: wellll in the context “permit” seems to imply permission, and in this case we are really just talking about enabling I guess.

[re=455916]Click[/re]: LOL those cereal boxes can be rather educational tho. For me French was always an extra language on the signs when we went over the Peace Bridge to get the strong beer or Chinese food. Not sure why the Chinese food was better in Ft. Erie, but that’s just how it was.

And I think the “to” is a preposition and maybe it belongs as part of the infinitive that follows? But yeah in the end, it seemed like all they were really saying was that such and such was used to do whatever. Or sometimes “helps.”

and yes, the french always did seem to work wonders on the ladies back in college…you could say anything dirty you wanted and it comes out sounding like poetry.

Prommie

[re=455921]Click[/re]: oui, but we only use the word “permit” in that circumstance because our language lacks subtelty and has no word which fits perfectly with that impersonal “permit” that does not imply volition, and purposeful use of authority. “Makes it possible for,” is one, but it could also could simply be said that some proteins can pass through the membrane, and thers cannot, by choosing to speak of what the membrane “permits” and what the membrane “bars” you are actually anthropomorphizing the membrane. I wonder if it says something about the nature of our acceptance of authority and power structures in this society that you would even speak in such a way of a physical-chemical process. Its like in grade school when they would anthropomorphize everything and show you film strips in which the white blood cells are dressed up in police uniforms and they chase after the germs, which are dressed like burglars, and beat them up with their nightsticks.

Click

[re=455928]Crank Tango[/re]: Il aurait travaillé sur moi!

user-of-owls

[re=455924]loquaciousmusic[/re]: I’m sure there’s plenty of room for said whore at a lovely hotel in Turkey. Make it a double so the other asshole can go too.

[re=455929]Prommie[/re]: Actually, it’s quite the reverse for me. People are nothing more than mindless biological processes that we pretend have volition and “person-ality.” Human beings are just like everything else – not vice versa.
And since when have the English ever lacked subtlety?

Click

[re=455929]Prommie[/re]: So does a driver’s permit allow you to drive? No. A permit doesn’t allow you to do anything. The cop who stops you and asks you for your permit allows you to drive.

[re=455970]CaiteeCruelle[/re]: Just to clarify…Prommie was actually referring to a question asked by DreadGate regarding the use of the word “permitted.”

Click

[re=455972]Crank Tango[/re]: Are we talking memorex or duct???

CaiteeCruelle

OK. I should’ve put the reply to [re=455921]your post[/re]. I speak French too, and I do follow why “permit” is not an appropriate translation for permettre.

Crank Tango

I’m gonna go with duct…

quand je pense à Fernande, je bande …

One Yield Regular

To be fair, all Kennedy did was erase the happy faces dotting each “i.”

But seriously, I love high school newspapers – the good ones are run by students who know they can get away with pretty much anything and aren’t afraid to take risks- unlike a lot of their more senior professional colleagues.

Click

[re=455982]CaiteeCruelle[/re]: Yes, but if language is a dynamic ever-changing phenomenon, where words oftentimes change their meanings (actually, they themselves don’t do it – we do), then “permit” can be used however and whenever we want it to. Rules can be changed, and only Latin remains a static language. Formerly, the correct English term for ‘euthanized’ was ‘euthanitized.’ But no one wanted to pronounce that extra syllable (it made them sound too southern) so it dropped from usage and is no longer considered proper. Free thinkers have power over language, not the other way around.
Language better never try fucking with me.

Crank Tango

[re=455995]Click[/re]: and now we go with the anglo-saxon “death panel” instead, amirite?

vladster

[re=455917]Prommie[/re]: Yeah, and they put breathylizers (sic) in our local high school so teachers who think Johnny Rotten might be boozin’ can verify. Stick with the drugs kids.

BlueStateLibtard

Nice job, pissing on the Constition on Veterans Day, Anthony.

Click

[re=456000]Crank Tango[/re]: cheque.

CaiteeCruelle

[re=455995]Click[/re]: Linguistics major?

Click

[re=456012]CaiteeCruelle[/re]: I’m flattered, but no. If it weren’t for such a thing as work credits, I wouldn’t have that High School Diploma hanging over my desk right now.

I like that shirt Robert Redford is wearing. You could graph a function on it.

Prommie

[re=455995]Click[/re]: precision is useful, the symbols with which you think determine your resolving power, so to speak. I am not getting all prescriptivist vs. descriptivist, I knows about Grimm’s law and the great consonant shift, so get down out of my grille. I was just explaining why Crank Tango was complaining about his translation being altered.

And fuck postmodernism, words have meaning, and if writer and reader don’t have the same meaning in mind, there is no communication.

Send me the memo when we just do away with all words expressing logical relations between concepts, like “contributed to,” “caused,” “allowed,” “created the conditions for” and such, and just grunt “ugh” to connect two thoughts, like “Obama ugh Acorn ugh vote fraud.”

Click

[re=456028]Crank Tango[/re]: Peut-être… However, there is a small problem of my boyfriend’s jealousy. He’s always suspected my bi-curious nature (linguistically speaking). But perhaps he’d be up (a-hem) for a menage a trois….?

[re=456045]Prommie[/re]: There’s more meaning in the molecules you exhale when you talk, than in the words you’re producing.

CaiteeCruelle

[re=456024]Click[/re]: I asked because I took a lot of linguistics courses, and I use pretty much the same argument you do (including the word “fuck”), however mainly in response to proscriptive grammarians. Less so with semantics, but I blame the Latin forced on me as a helpless 8th grader.

Click

[re=456064]CaiteeCruelle[/re]: Catholic school?

Click

[re=456061]Crank Tango[/re]: hahahaha1!1111!

proudgrampa

IS SOMEONE GONNA BRING THE BANHAMMER DOWN ON PEOPLE WHO WRITE HERE IN FRENCH??!!1!!??

IF I WANTED TO READ FRENCH, I WOULD PICK UP A COPY OF LE MONDE!!1!!

WHY DO YOU HATE ENGLISH??

Crank Tango

[re=456068]Click[/re]: : )

Click

[re=456071]proudgrampa[/re]: Sorry grandpa, but French is the tongue I’m most fond of. I’ll stop now.

[re=456045]Prommie[/re], are you deliberately staying away from the phrase “mutual intelligibility”? Because that’s the one you can throw like a brick anytime in arguments like this. Although I did get your meaning without it.

Crank Tango

[re=456104]CaiteeCruelle[/re]: so when latin was “forced on you” it wasn’t a “bad touch”?

Prommie

[re=456104]CaiteeCruelle[/re]: Wow, thats a handy way of saying it, I will remember that.

You watch, you’ll be a prescriptivist (whats a proscriptivist?) when you grow old and cranky. Everyone knows that old saying, if you are a prescriptivist when you are young, you have a stick up your ass, if you are a descriptivist when you are old, you are a filthy, pot-reeking hippie.

Oh, in the end of course, deep beneath the more or less shared and agreed-upon “meanings” of “words,” there are the countless and infinitely varied personal connotations arising out of our experiences and memories and quirks who knows what else, so in the end, really, true communication is impossible, and we are, all, utterly, alone, seperated always from even our deepest love, by an impassible chasm. Le sigh.

CaiteeCruelle

Well, if it happened now it might be classed that way. But times were different then. “No means ‘I prefer to take Spanish'” wasn’t yet part of the social lexicon, nor was the term “helicopter parents”. Teachers and school admins just did what they wanted, and teenage girls had no sense of respect or control over their own curricula.

snideinplainsight

Ceci n’ais pas une tweet.

Click

[re=456181]Prommie[/re]: “and we are all, utterly, alone, seperated always from even our deepest love, by an impassible chasm.”
The greatest lie/myth/misperception/misunderstanding that language creates and perpetuates is our belief in separation and duality.

Prommie

[re=456223]Click[/re]: OK, Heidegger.

Darkness

The Irony meter pegs only because it is unaware that the Supremes have already established that high schoolers have zero to negative first amendment rights.

Click

[re=456237]Prommie[/re]: I was short on labels, thanks for that one.

Click

[re=456237]Prommie[/re]: This is actually the downside of education. It tends to make you think you know what you’re talking about.

Tundra Grifter

[re=455911]chascates[/re]: Besides, who would expect a Justice sitting on the Supreme Court of these United States to be articulate and actually able to say what he ment to say the first time he said it? Who wouldn’t expect a Justice to take a mulligan?